Secrets of the Wee Free Men and Discworld

by Linda Washington

  Pratchett includes unique gods and goddesses as well, like Anoia, the minor goddess of things that stick in drawers (and also lost corkscrews and things that roll under furniture), and Aniger, the goddess of squashed animals. (She must work overtime.)

  Although we said we wouldn’t talk about architecture, we can’t help mentioning one place—Dunmanifestin, the place where the gods apparently were done manifesting. In The Last Hero, Ghengiz Cohen (a.k.a. Cohen the Barbarian with a bit of Genghis Khan, the Mongolian conqueror of the thirteenth century) and his posse, the Silver Horde, argue with the Valkyries who want to take them to the Halls of the Slain in Dunmanifestin on Cori Celesti. Well, Dunmanifestin is referred to as “the stuccoed Valhalla” in Guards! Guards!11 (The Valkyries, the female warriors who take the dead to Valhalla, come from Norse mythology.)

  According to Fairies and How to Avoid Them by Miss Perspicacia Tick (a book mentioned in Hat Full of Sky), the Nac Mac Feegles believe that Earth is like Valhalla.

  Other Stories (But the Gods Are in Them, Too). Not content to tweak just the gods of Greek myths, Pratchett tweaks other people or their situations to include in Discworld. For example, you know the story of King Midas, right? An allusion to the greedy king’s story appears early in Witches Abroad, which seems to be a veritable “glodmine” of allusions. Instead of King Midas, there is Seriph Al-Ybi, whose curse by a god with poor spelling causes everything he touches to turn to a dwarf named Glod.

  And how about the story of Daedalus and Icarus? It gets a send-up in Jingo and The Last Hero. Leonard of Quirm, Pratchett’s answer to Leonardo da Vinci (more on them in chapter 19), has a similar goal of perfecting the art of flying, but not airline food.

  And of course, there is the story of Prometheus, the Titan and creator of man (according to the Greek myth) who dared to steal fire from the gods and suffered for it by having his liver eaten by an eagle every day. (But not with bacon or onions.) He’s Mazda in Discworld and his theft is the inspiration for The Last Hero, where Ghengiz Cohen and the Silver Horde try to return fire to the gods by blowing them up. (A weird way of saying thanks. Flowers would’ve been better.)

  At this point, we have to mention another place—the Underworld, or realm of the dead. The Greeks and Romans had it in their mythology. This kingdom is ruled by Hades and surrounded by rivers that include Acheron, Styx, and Lethe. A three-headed dog named Cerberus guards this realm.

  Discworld not only has an Underworld, it has an inferno similar to the one described in The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. (See “The Devil Made Me Do It” later in the chapter.) In Wintersmith, the Nac Mac Feegles and Roland de Chumsfanleigh journey through the Underworld to wake up the Summer Lady and meet an unnamed, overcharging ferryman. Pratchett cleverly reminds us where they are by having one of the Feegles shout, “We’re right oot in the Styx noo!”12 The three-headed dog, however, meets its end thanks to the loads of boggles in the Underworld.

  As the Feegles explain, a trip through the Underworld is traditional for heroes, because a number of heroes in classical mythology journeyed through it. We’re told of a myth of Ephebe—the rescue of Euniphon by Orpheo,13 which is an allusion to two Greek myths: (1) The story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus, the son of Apollo (the god of fine arts) and Calliope (a muse), was a poet and musician known especially for playing the lyre. (In Pratchett’s book, a lute and a lyre are mentioned.) He sorrowed so much when his wife, Eurydice, died, that Hades allowed her to return to Earth with him on one condition—that Orpheus not look back until he returned above ground. (In Wintersmith, Rob Anybody cautions Roland in a similar manner.) But in a move like that of Lot’s wife in the Bible, Orpheus looked back and Eurydice returned to the Underworld. (2) The story of Persephone, whose enforced stay in the Underworld caused winter on earth. But in Discworld, the rescue is all about the return of summer—hence the Summer Lady’s stay in the Underworld.

  As we read this journey, we couldn’t help thinking of Odysseus, whose trip through the Underworld to seek the aid of Tiresias, a blind prophet, is chronicled in The Odyssey by another architect of worlds—Homer (but not Simpson).

  Speaking of Homer (still not Simpson), both of his epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, and Virgil’s The Aeneid have a place in Discworld mythology. In Eric, the Trojan Wars from The Iliad and The Aeneid are the Tsortean Wars in which the Ephebians (the Greeks) fight the Tsorteans (the Trojans), because of Elenor, the Helen of Troy of the story. Lavaeolus, the Odysseus of the story, is trying to return home.

  The Tsortean Wars are woven even tighter into the fabric of Discworld mythology when Nanny Ogg refers to them (and an Achilles’s heel situation) in Witches Abroad.

  Lest we forget, Roland de Chumsfanleigh is an allusion to Roland, the hero of Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland) the twelfth-century French epic by Turoldus.

  A Nod to the Norse Myths. Moving on to Norse mythology, some of its population find equal opportunity in Discworld, namely elves, dwarfs (or dwarves, as Tolkien popularized), trolls (the faithful Sergeant Detritus), werewolves (of sorts), and Valkyries.

  The large number of werewolves prowling around Uberwald owe their fictional lives to the long history of werewolf stories, starting with Loki’s wolf son, Fenrir—who was so fearsome that the other gods had to bind him to prevent him from killing them—and continuing with “White Wolf of the Harz Mountains,” an 1839 story by Frederick Marryat, and the 1941 Lon Chaney movie The Wolf Man. (More on werewolves in chapter 4.)

  European Folklore and History

  I Dream of Jenny with the Light Green Teeth. Although The Lord of the Rings was meant to be a mythology of sorts for England, many folktales already existed around the British Isles. Some of these folktales derived from tales elsewhere in Europe and the world. Take, for example, the tale of Jenny Green-Teeth, whom Pratchett mentions in The Wee Free Men. Jenny, a hag of the river and a “Grade 1 Prohibitory Monster”14 according to Miss Tick (see chapter 6), was known to lure children to their doom—a fate that nearly befalls Tiffany’s sticky brother, Wentworth. She’s a sort of antiondine or undine—a water elemental of folklore based on Ondine, a water nymph in German myths, who fell in love with a faithless human. (Reminds you of “Little Mermaid,” doesn’t it?) Whereas water nymphs are said to be beautiful and helpful (if helping suits their needs), Jenny’s the Ugly Betty of the water spirit world. She’s not so much concerned about gaining a soul, which undines seek (if you read Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Mermaid,” you know that was the goal). She just wants lunch, as other famous child-eating witches (Baba Yaga, the witch of Russian folklore, or the witch in “Hansel and Gretel”) could relate to.

  Freaks and Geats, Plus Arthur—Warts and All. Pratchett admits to reading Beowulf, the thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon epic, as a boy. Beowulf, the great Geat hero with amazing strength, had the gumption to fight the monster Grendel with his bare hands. And who doesn’t know the story of King Arthur, told in a cycle of medieval stories? Beowulf, supposedly written by a monk, and the legend of King Arthur—realized by Sir Thomas Malory (Le Morte d’Arthur, based on French and English tales) and T. H. White in The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn—set the standard for heroic tales.

  Carrot Ironfoundersson, who was named after a guy with red hair who worked on Pratchett’s house, has both the manner of a Beowulf-type hero and the legacy of a King Arthur, even though he considers himself a dwarf. Like King Arthur, formerly known as Wart in Once and Future King, Carrot is an orphan who is probably the rightful king of the land. Both have heirloom swords. Unlike Arthur, Carrot was raised by dwarfs and is content to remain a simple watchman for now, rather than rule over corrupt Ankh-Morpork.

  In The Fifth Elephant, Carrot agrees to fight a werewolf with his bare hands. Shades of the Beowulf-Grendel match perhaps? Only Pratchett knows. But a direct allusion to the monsters in Beowulf occurs in Guards! Guards! when one hero says to another, “Monsters are getting more uppity, too. I heard where this guy,
he killed this monster in this lake, no problem, stuck its arm up over the door … . Its mum come and complained.”15

  An allusion to the King Arthur legend occurs in Wintersmith, when Roland throws his sword into the river while in the Underworld. The sword is caught in a manner similar to that of the Lady of the Lake in the King Arthur stories, who caught the sword, Excalibur, when it was returned to her—her stipulation upon granting Arthur the sword.

  Historical Hijinks. Another building block of Discworld involves Alexandre Dumas, a nineteenth-century French writer you probably read in high school, who used the drama of seventeenth-century France to tell his musketeer stories. In The Truth, an allusion to The Man in the Iron Mask is made when Lord Havelock Vetinari is asked about the fate of his doppelgänger, an unfortunate man named Charlie. Is he “in a deep cell, and made … [to] wear a mask all the time, and have all his meals brought by a deaf and dumb jailer?”16 Philippe, the unfortunate mask-wearing prisoner of Man in the Iron Mask, was taken away from the Bastille in a carriage manned by a “deaf and dumb” postilion arranged by ex-musketeer Aramis.

  Folklore of the East

  If any one should be asked … what is it that solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian before mentioned who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on; to which his answer was- a great tortoise: but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied- something, he knew not what.

  —John Locke, British philosopher in chapter XXIII of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, written in 1690,17 a time when everyone talked like this.

  Perhaps when you’re eating aloo gobi or watching a Tony Jaa film (The Protector!) you don’t think about myths from such countries as Thailand, China, or India. (Maybe you will next time.) But Pratchett folds some of the myths of the East into his cultural stew.

  Terrifying Tortoises and Powerful Pachyderms. If you happen to know Hindu mythology, you know about Akupara, the tortoise carrying a world on its back. English philosopher and empiricist John Locke was certainly aware back in the seventeenth century. We’ve already said Pratchett was aware; hence his inclusion of the Great A’Tuin, the giant turtle upon which the four elephants (Great T’Phon, Tubul, Jerakeen, and Berilia) carrying the Disc ride. (A fifth elephant, discussed in The Fifth Elephant, is just a legend.)

  Elephants play a big role in Hindu mythology. Not only does the Hindu god Indra ride one (Airavata—the first elephant created), elephants supposedly are the mounts of choice for the guardian gods at the eight points of the compass. (Some people prefer horses as destriers.) So, it’s only fitting that elephants, like Atlas the Titan in Greek mythology, hold up the world.

  A’Tuin isn’t the only chelonian mentioned in Discworld (although it is the largest, being a star turtle). The Great God Om (Small Gods) is a small tortoise for much of the time (and a grumpy one at that) until more people believe in him.

  And Yet There’s the Yeti. You’ve undoubtedly heard stories of the yeti, the ape-man creatures loping around the Himalayas and supposedly leaving their scalps around monasteries. (We don’t make these things up.) These are “the abominable snowmen” of many stories. (The Tibetans have the yeti. In North America, we have Bigfoot and Sasquatch.) But only Pratchett (see Thief of Time) mentions the “sword trick”—cutting off a yeti’s head and having it come back to life.

  Are yeti real or mythological? Scientists aren’t really sure, even after several expeditions to track them. The jury’s still out on Bigfoot, as well.

  Stories? She’s Got a Thousand of ’Em. The stories woven through one master storyteller, Scheherazade, in The Arabian Nights or The 1001 Arabian Nights, are myths from Persia (now Iran), Asia, India, and Arabia and were written in the tenth through the fourteenth centuries. Maybe you read the collection of stories compiled by Andrew Lang (usually relegated to the kids’ section of the library) or the complete tales found in the nonfiction section of the library. Pratchett, like Scheherazade, wove several stories (or allusions to stories) from The Arabian Nights into one book: Sourcery. Check it out: The cowardly Rincewind’s journey to Al Khali, a city in Klatch, his dealings with Creosote, the Seriph of Al Khali, and Abrim the evil vizier who instigates the Mage Wars (see also chapter 7)—all are reminiscent of stories in the Arabian Nights collection, particularly “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” “The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar,” and the Haroun al-Raschid, Caliph of Baghdad, stories. A major nod to The Arabian Nights comes through the mention of a flying carpet and a magic lamp from the seriph’s treasury. Contrary to the 1992 Disney movie Aladdin (which drew some inspiration from The Thief of Bagdad, a movie from 1940), the flying carpet comes from “The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar.”

  Another oblique nod (we think) to The Arabian Nights is the character of Rincewind who, like Sinbad, the intrepid sailor of seven voyages, journeys around the world and encounters many dangers. Unlike Sinbad, however, who at least wanted to go on some of the voyages, Rincewind is dragged kicking and screaming.

  By the way, Creosote is an allusion to Croesus—the king of Lydia in 560-546 B.C., who was known for being wealthy, hence the idiom “rich as Croesus.” Of course, you knew that.

  DISCWORLD: AN IDEAL ENVIRONMENT?

  The decision as to what form the house shall take is made on sociocultural grounds—way of life, shared group values, and “ideal” environment sought.

  Amos Rapoport, House Form and Culture18

  An architect also has to be an anthropologist of sorts in order to make his or her designs functional and culturally relevant. Terry Pratchett is an anthropologist as well—perhaps not in degree, but in his experience as a journalist and in the stories from other cultures he has read. The curios and connections he gained through stories added to the crucible in which Discworld was born.

  Discworld has several people groups, some of which have a changing cultural identity based on the region they’re in. For example, the dwarfs in Shmaltzberg might act a little differently than do the dwarfs in Ankh-Morpork. Angua, a werewolf from Uberwald, opposes some of the practices of her family back home. But Pratchett still keeps the basic cultural identities of dwarfs and werewolves found in literature. Werewolves are still people who transform into wolves (or, in the case of the yennork, a werewolf who doesn’t change at all). Witches are still witches. Immortals (personifications), while they may work as milkmen at times (e.g., Ronny Soak, alias Kaos) or look like men (the Wintersmith), are still, well, elementals. It’s elementary. (Just keeping up with our end of the bargain concerning the bad puns.)

  So, how does Pratchett give shape to the cultural identities of his people/creature groups? Some classic stories inspire him.

  Full of Fairy Tales … and Classic Tales

  If you made the trek to see any of the Shrek movies, chances are you probably liked fairy tales as a kid (and still do, if you’re honest with yourself; we know you record The Fairly OddParents on TiVo). The fairy-tale collections of Charles Perrault in seventeenth-century France, the Brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm) from Germany, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe from Norway in the eighteenth century, and Scotsman Andrew Lang in the nineteenth influenced many fantasy writers, including Terry Pratchett.

  “Little Red Riding Hood,” a story all three collections have in common, also finds its way into Pratchett’s Witches Abroad—one of the Lancre witch novels featuring Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick. Perrault’s “Cinderella” story also is integral to the plot. Since the novel deals with the fulfillment of stories, it includes a plethora of nods to other well-known fairy tales from the three collections: “Sleeping Beauty” (also alluded to in Mort), “The Frog Prince,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” “Hansel and Gretel” (also alluded to in The Light Fantastic), “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and “Rumpelstiltskin.”

  In each of Pratchett’s allusions, the characters beha
ve in a way readers can easily recognize from fairy tales. But he places his own spin on the situations. Although fairy godmothers still provide pumpkin coaches, Magrat winds up turning everything into pumpkins at first. Black Aliss is the wicked witch shut up in the oven in a Hansel and Gretel-like way. The frog prince (really a duc—French for “duke” and “horned owl”—go figure), who is hardly a Prince Charming, tries to marry the Cinderella of the story.

  In Thief of Time, Pratchett alludes to Grimm’s Fairy Tales when Jeremy Clockson reads Grim Fairy Tales, which contains such stories as “The Old Lady in the Oven” (gotta be a Hansel and Gretel story) and “The Glass Clock of Bad Schüschein.”

  The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is one large allusion to the Pied Piper of Hamelin story, a story the Grimm brothers included and one that inspired poet Robert Browning. Pratchett also mentions the story of “Puss in Books” from Charles Perrault’s collection and “Dick Livingstone and his wonderful cat”—an allusion to Dick Whittington, a story Andrew Lang collected (which is partially based on the life of Richard Whittington the Lord Mayor of London), and Ken Livingstone the Leader of the Greater London Council until 1986. He became Mayor of London in 2002.